


The Precise Magic of Snowflakes

by KannaOphelia



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Snedronningen | The Snow Queen - Hans Christian Andersen
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-divergent AU: Jadis doesn't die, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fairytale Fusion, Gift Exchange, It's a love story, Lots of Snow and Ice Symbolism, Magic and Witchcraft, Snow and Ice, Strangely Chilly Sex, Wicked Queens Need Love Too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:21:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26005615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/pseuds/KannaOphelia
Summary: Or:How the Empress Jadis of Charn became the White Witch*. *. *"I heard the rumours from the humans when I sent my spies out into the land. You are the beautiful monster who lures human children away from their parents, who drags them away on a sled."Khionê's eyes glittered even more brightly, and her gaze sought the roof, the patterns in the ice. "I did have a little boy, not long ago, who followed me on his sled and took my kisses so sweetly. But I left to scatter snow on the volcanos, and he left with his sister. Or was it his lover? You can't expect me to remember. I was distracted by weeping. Perhaps they will have a child, who will live with me and let me embrace them and see the pretty patterns they make with the ice.""You will no longer bring the children of Adam and Eve to this place. I have killed them, all that have not fled across the borders of Narnia, and I will not tolerate them in my land.""But I require a companion. What will you give me in return for my promise?"
Relationships: Jadis | The White Witch/The Snow Queen (Fairy Tales)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 16
Collections: Crossworks 2020





	The Precise Magic of Snowflakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



Jadis hated the cold. When she ruled Narnia, she vowed, it would never snow again.

She wrapped her cloak more closely around her as she toiled up the mountain. Its hem flapped red and wet with blood, but the blood was already freezing stiffly into the velvet. None of the red was hers, and none was shed by snowflake warriors she battled against. Jadis's guard, her chosen, had died one by one in defence of her. Jadis herself had not faltered, even when the powerful efreets had fallen to weapons of ice and cold, as the snowflakes had smothered her sprites and horrors. Her werewolves had snapped uselessly at snow necks and drenched her with their blood. Her followers were only tools, in the end, and when they snapped, there still remained Jadis, ancient and alone.

She had ruled Charn, Felinda, Sorlis and Bramandin. She had destroyed a world with a word, and come to rule this world. She had waited nine hundred years in exile in the Wild Wastes, becoming cleverer and stronger, as the apple tree withered and died. Even as she climbed the mountain, Narnia was falling to her allies, the royal family fed to her giants and ghouls, the other humans dying and driven out.

A little snow had no chance against her.

At the head of the mountain, the snowdrifts began to form walls, halls, a great sprawling featureless palace of snow. The snowflake warriors fell away, hissing from their many serpentine heads and growling from their bear throats, as if more afraid to follow Jadis inside than to be melted by her magic. Cowards, all. This Jadis understood, that all beings were inherently cowards. If they sacrificed themselves to death for her or any other leader, it was only because other things were worse. Jadis had learned long ago that power lay being the greatest fear of all.

The snowflake warriors feared whoever lived in this snow palace more than they feared destruction at Jadis's hands.

Sheer will kept her from shivering as she strode through the halls. The coldness stung her skin, seeped into blood and bones and organs. She _hated_ snow. Power should be hot: the dripping of sweat from a slave, fire burning flesh to ashes, hot blood spurting from a knife. Even hard icicles like spears she could respect, at least until she snapped them. This killing coldness was too soft, too feathery and gentle, hiding its murder in feathery piles. It blurred her sight, her senses, it clung to her bloody robes and eyelashes and lips. She had to focus all her power on finding its centre, the throb and glitter of her fellow witch.

It was hours or days or weeks before she found the Frozen Lake at the centre of the palace. The ice on its surface spread in complicated cracks, each pattern as symmetrical and unique and precise as a snowflake. Jadis had heard this witch used the magic of mathematics, used patterns to confuse and beguile.

Jadis knew how to break any pattern.

The witch waited in the middle of the lake. She was tall, but not as tall as Jadis. Her grey eyes sparkled like stars, but they darted away from Jadis's gaze, to the patterns, across the lake, as if restlessly seeking something else. And she was white, all of her white, her delicate face, her thin arms, her dress and cloak and the hair billowing around her. As white as Jadis after she tasted the apple.

"I am Jadis, Empress of Charn, True Queen of Narnia. Declare your name so I know my enemy."

"I am Khionê, the Snow Queen, and no enemy of yours. Ruler of a dead world, witch of the Wild Wastes, pretender to Narnia, why do you come to my lonely palace and slaughter my snowflakes? Don't you know I can create a thousand more with a breath?"

"Then why am I alive?"

The witch shrugged, her cloak rising and falling with the movement. "I was curious. There is nothing for you here, and I have no interest in your cause, or in opposing you. Whoever rules Narnia, the snow will fall on this world and many others. Sometimes, on a whim, I even fly to the Great Desert of Calormen and dust their sands with snow. Why fight me, sister?"

 _Sister._ The word stoked the anger in Jadis's heart. If this witch knew what Jadis knew about _sisters_. "I heard the rumours from the humans when I sent my spies out into the land. You are the beautiful monster who lures human children away from their parents, who drags them away on a sled."

Khionê's eyes glittered even more brightly, and her gaze sought the roof, the patterns in the ice. "What do you care for the companions a lonely Queen brings to her side?"

" _Where are they_? I can smell them!" The scent lay under the cold pure scent of the snow, warm and organic.

"Gone. They age and die and leave me, or else their families come and solve the puzzle for them."

"You are lying! The scent is fresh and young."

"I did have a little boy, not long ago, who followed me on his sled and took my kisses so sweetly. But I left to scatter snow on the volcanos, and he left with his sister. Or was it his lover? You can't expect me to remember. I was distracted by weeping. Perhaps they will have a child, who will live with me and let me embrace them and see the pretty patterns they make with the ice."

"You will no longer bring the children of Adam and Eve to this place. I have killed them, all that have not fled over the borders of Narnia, and I will not tolerate them in my land."

"But I require a companion. What will you give me in return for my promise?"

Jadis tossed her hair, furious. "This is an order, not an offer."

The Snow Queen smiled with pale lips, her laughter drifting glittering in the cold air. "Do you have enough power, that you will scorn mine? Hold my hand, beautiful sister, kiss my lips, and I will share my power. Be my companion sometimes, and I will no longer steal humans."

"I rule alone."

"I rule every winter. I have no need of Narnia. But I tire of ruling alone." Khionê let her cloak spill from white shoulders, bared soft breasts and let her skirts fall, until her beautiful hair was all that clothed her. She was exquisite, beautiful, and Jadis felt something like passion rise within her. How long had it been since Charn and her pleasure slaves, since the taste of that terrible apple had killed the ability in her to desire? But the apple tree in Narnia had died, and here in this snow palace, something came alive in her again. Not the yearning for the warm skin and flesh of her slaves, but a chilling longing and ache.

And why not? She could take Khionê's offer, learn her magic, and then kill her and melt all this damnable snow forever.

She stepped forward, seized the delicate shoulders, and pressed her mouth to Khionê's. It was cold, cold, but soft as well, the lips parting readily, the tongue stealing warmth from her own, and ice curled tendrils inside her. She shivered and shivered.

Khionê laughed up at her. "Are you chilled, dear heart?"

She was, Jadis realised, but it no longer bothered her. The shivers were like ripples of pleasure, the sting of ice on her skin setting her nerves alight. She dived hungrily for another kiss, and another, and her blood ran in her veins like nitrogen.

Khionê pulled away at last. "You must stop, or you will kiss yourself to death! I told you I do not oppose you. You have kept your side of the bargain, and I will not have you kill yourself on my lips. Your heart is too fierce to let it fall into eternal slumber for a kiss."

"It will not." Jadis reached down and took one long pale hand, tiny in her own, and pressed it to the gap between her furs. "Feel it thunder. I am no puny mortal, to die from a little frost."

Khionê's eyes wavered like distant planets, her lips parting, and then she flung herself into Jadis's arms, her lips eager and seeking. Jadis met her kiss for kiss, pushed her back on the ice so hard that new fractures ran through the ice in infinite patterns, as if recognising that she was going to take the rival witch apart. She bit colour into Khionê's lips, the palest shade of blue bruising, left shadows where she sucked on the side of her neck, twisted her nipples in long fingers until the nubs were round and faint lilac. Khionê's breasts were small and pretty, the hollow of her hips faintly shadowed on each side of her rounded belly, hair-like wisps of cloud around her sex. Colder than a marble statue from the terraces of Jadis's palace in Charn, softer than a narcissus petal. Her Snow Queen, hers.

There was more than one way to make a slave, Jadis told herself, raking her fingertips in the curls, scraping the fragile skin. This snow creature was willing to be possessed; then Jadis would possess her, and take her powers and her beauty for herself. She pushed two fingers between swollen lower lips, feeling Khionê sob and arch her back, and wetness coated them like Jadis had dipped them in iced sherbet. She was tempted to lower her head and taste, but that would involve exposing the back of her neck to a rival, and she was not as reckless as all that. She slid them up and down the slick cold groove, and Khionê tossed her head as their breath rasped together.

When Jadis's wet finger found the right place, Khionê cried out, and crystals of ice formed and collapsed in the air around them. Jadis circled and pinched, rough and strangely tender. She stroked nipple in one hand, taking advantage of her inhumanly long fingers to push a thumb deep inside as she tormented the hard numb above the entrance. It was like pushing into snow, but only if snow could cling and clench and suck at her fingers. Jadis sought and tilted it just so, until tears were running down Khionê's face as she found the right place, her thumb working on the other side of her fingers as Khionê fell apart in Jadis's arms.

"You're mine now," Jadis said, and it came out more triumphantly and less indifferently than she intended.

Khionê rolled her back with remarkable strength and fought Jadis's skirts up over her waist, and apparently, she had none of Jadis's instinct for self-preservation, because she dipped her head and kissed Jadis between the legs, worked eagerly with lips and tongue.

Jadis lifted her own hand to her mouth and ran her tongue over it. Not sherbet but ocean water, water from the chilly Northern seas. The taste of Khionê mingled with the convulsions of her body and she arched and let her breath hiss out as the pleasure exploded, icicles stabbing up her body, cold burning more intensely than any heat.

"No humans," she said when she had calmed.

"None. I wouldn't threaten you, my beautiful Queen, my wife."

Something in Jadis tugged at that, and she resisted it hard. She pushed Khionê off her and struggled to her feet. Khionê rolled onto her back, propped herself up on her elbows, and watched Jadis with those wide star-like eyes.

 _Come with me, rule with me,_ she wanted to say, for one insane moment, imagining two Queens, side-by-side. Not only Narnia would fall, but Archenland, the Wastes, the Calormene Empire and beyond. Her sister had promised to rule side-by-side once, and the city of Charn had been soaked with blood after her sister had betrayed her. Used magic against her. Witches were treacherous beasts by nature.

"Don't tell me you love me," Jadis said scornfully.

"No. I can't. There is glass in my heart, and the patterns won't form the right word. I can make all the patterns in the world with my ice, but not that one. I have hoped the children will learn to love me in their innocence, will make the pattern, but in the end, someone always comes for them. The word they make is for them, not me. But someone will. _You_ will. When the glass is plucked from your own heart, then the patterns will form my word."

"I am not here to save you. I won't be coming back," Jadis said. "I've taken my share of your powers now. And my magic will keep you bound to this place, all alone."

"My poor, lonely Empress," Khionê said. "You will. Ruling won't satisfy you, and you will choose me when your heart aches for love, because I understand."

Jadis considered slaying her, but perhaps it would be crueller, a better punishment for Khionê's insulting pity, to leave her alone in her palace, without human companions. She turned her back now, in contempt. She need not fear Khionê now.

"I'll always be with you," Khionê said. "You won't be alone. Please don't fear. It will be over soon."

Jadis ignored her and made her way back down the mountain. Across Narnia, from east to west, the dark heavy clouds gathered across the sky.

* * *

Jadis was suffocating. She had suffocated. The weight of the Lion stole the air from her lungs, its breath filled her, and she was dying, dead, burned up from the inside. Failed. Dead? But this was no afterlife, she felt it deep inside her. Was this the curse of immortality? When she had taken the apple she had known it would protect her from aging, but this, this being sent bodily from the world still being alive, still being trapped in her body, that she hadn't expected.

The Lion hadn't been able to kill her, but he had sent her away. Locked her away. She struggled to sense her surroundings, the chair under her, the vast hall, and fear gripped her. She was back in Charn before its final destruction, next to the effigies of her ancestors.

Alone.

She sat in darkness and heat for a thousand heartbeats, a thousand years. She couldn't tell which. No human children would come to free her from her long wait this time. She was so alone, and there was nothing but failure and pain and hatred and loneliness.

_Nothing, daughter? Nothing at all?_

She screamed in fury at the voice. It was her mother's voice, but her mother had never spoken to her so lovingly. The old Queen, who had birthed her and her terrible sister, had set them against each other, had caused the war that tore their world apart. Her mother was ashes and wax and no one had ever taught Jadis to love or be loved.

She waited another day or another century, alone with the pulse in her ears.

 _No one?_ It was her sister's voice.

"Not you," she snarled. "I loved no one." Her mind tumbled back through the years, through the torment. The memories of everyone who had failed her, been too selfish, too weak. But she had survived. She was trapped now, but she had always escaped, always triumphed again. She could do it again. If only she could move. If only there was someone to help.

 _But could you love? Everyone can, daughter. You just have to choose._ It was the Lion's voice, and she should hate it, but she was distracted by an explosion of snowflakes, cooling the darkness. One fell on her left breast, melted through her flesh, and there was a pain, a terrible pain, and something wrenched free. Jadis found she could move.

The snowflakes were a language, mechanical and precise. Shining like a pair of starlike eyes. Jadis was clever, she was a magician and witch, and suddenly the mathematics of the snowflakes were something she could read.

 _Khionê is all alone in that palace. And I, I have always been alone._ The feeling, it was hunger of a kind, but not burning craving for blood and power and revenge, it was cool and sweet and... The snowflakes formed a word in a language Jadis didn't know, but could read like a simple sum, the answer clear. She laughed.

The Hall of her Ancestors faded as the magic took her. She stepped between the barriers between worlds as if they were curtains, and walls of the snow palace formed around her. 

Khionê stumbled to her feet. The shimmer in the air by her breast might have been snow, or it might have been shattered glass. "At last," she said, as Jadis came forward and clasped her close. "At last. At last."

The snow was soft around them, and the fractures in the lake reassembled to form another word, but neither of them bothered to read it.

**Author's Note:**

> Khionê/Chione was the Ancient Greek goddess of snow. I needed a name beyond Snow Queen/Snedronningen, and given the nymphs and dryads in Narnia, it seemed the right way to fuse the canons.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this, inquistor_tohru! Thank you for a wonderful request, with two of my favourite characters from my favourite canons. As a child who had never seen snow, I was haunted by the thought that the Snow Queen's kisses could protect from the cold, or kill.


End file.
